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Lafayette to pursue moratorium on new oil and gas permits

City Council asks for emergency ordinance

By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
09/04/2012 10:45:18 PM MDT

Updated:
09/04/2012 10:45:48 PM MDT

Lafayette became the latest community in Boulder County to push for a temporary ban on new permits for oil and gas drilling, as the City Council on Tuesday night discussed the controversial process of energy extraction in Colorado.

The city's elected leaders agreed to ask the staff to craft an emergency ordinance that would place a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling in the city, but they didn't set a date for when they might enact the temporary ban.

The vote came after the council met for an extended workshop on the topics of oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The leaders heard from city planning staffers, the city attorney and Thom Kerr, permit manager for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

At the heart of the discussion was what changes might need to be made to Lafayette's regulations on drilling, which haven't been revised since 1994. The council decided Tuesday to begin the process of revising those regulations.

Several residents who spoke at the meeting urged the council to pursue an immediate moratorium, even though the city hasn't seen a new well drilled in 18 years.

Sandy Hockenbury, who has lived in Lafayette for four years, said right now the system essentially allows the industry to self-regulate because there are only 18 inspectors for 48,000 active wells in the state.

Lafayette has 14 active wells, all drilled between 1981 and 1994.

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"These regulations are just pie-in-the-sky," Hockenbury said. "These are big industrial sites, and there are smells, there are air-quality concerns, and there are thousands of documented instances of air and water contamination."

Merrily Mazza, an Indian Peaks resident for a little more than a year, said her reason for supporting a moratorium comes down to maintaining property values.

"This is a residential neighborhood," she said. "I bought here because there are walking trails; I bought here because there is a golf course."

Lafayette is just the latest in a series of communities throughout Colorado that has sought to tighten regulations on the oil and gas industry. The industry has countered that it is already heavily regulated and that there has been no scientific proof that drilling causes health problems.

City Attorney David Williamson told the council that a moratorium is an option for the city to pursue but warned that trouble could come during the rule-making phase. He warned that court rulings have made it clear that natural resource extraction is the purview of the state, and not municipalities.

"If we push too hard, we are likely to see a challenge from the state or the operators," he said. "The trick is finding out which areas have been pre-empted by the state."

Williamson pointed out that the state filed suit against Longmont after the city passed regulations this summer that banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in residential areas. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission claimed that Longmont overstepped its bounds.

The attorney also said Lafayette might consider doing what Erie did last week, when the town signed agreements with two oil and gas operators that bind the companies to abide by more stringent rules than what the state requires.

Erie, through that vote, allowed its six-month moratorium on issuing new drilling permits to expire Monday.

Council members peppered Kerr with questions about water quality, air quality and safety at well sites. Councilwoman Alexandra Lynch asked about the billions of gallons of water that are required to extract oil and gas and whether, once it is used, it can be returned to the hydrological cycle.

Kerr responded that in some cases, municipalities sell water to oil and gas operators and in turn benefit from those revenues.

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